DCU researchers feature at Summer School for ENHANCE Erasmus+ project

Kaunas University of Technology hosted an implementation Summer School for the project from 11-13 June 2025, in Kaunas Lithuania. The main objective of this School was for the researchers to share their experiences in planning and/or conducting their Futures Workshop.

During the first day, 11 June, Dublin City University colleagues facilitated discussions enabling the researchers to identify and share their various successes and challenges in planning and/or conducting their Futures Workshops. For example, researchers shared their assessments of the various factors influencing how their Future Workshop(s) unfolded, and how using the Workshop approach influenced their research.

The discussions and activities during the second day, 12 June, focused on the researchers and the ENHANCE team members critiquing the Future Workshops training and resources provided to date. For example, participants identified: what parts of the training and materials worked well; what did not; what was missing; and which topics required more information. During the sessions, the participants also discussed those values and attributes that might best enable researchers to succeed in using a Future Workshop approach. At the end of the day, the researchers received their micro-credit certificates from the University of Aveiro for completion of their Futures Workshop training.

On the third day, 13 June, ENHANCE Project team split into informal working groups to discuss project management, such as reporting, communication, and dissemination. Various ENHANCE team members also met informally with different researchers to discuss their individual projects and offer support.

To further capture participants’ experiences with their Future Workshops and with the ENHANCE project, a sub-team of colleagues from Dublin City University, Linköping University, and Tampere University recorded the event and interviews with individual researchers and ENHANCE team members. The ENHANCE team will use these recordings and photos to create educational and social media products relating to lessons learned from this project.